DEHRADUN/NEW DELHI: Uttarakhand Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal has issued notices to nine rebel Congress MLAs asking why they should not be disqualified from the House even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi sparred over the political crisis in the hill State.
The main Opposition BJP has, meanwhile, claimed that 35 MLAs, including 26 from the party and nine from the Congress, had already given a notice for a no-confidence motion against the Speaker to the Vidhan Sabha Secretary for his alleged failure to conduct the House in an impartial manner even before he issued the notices to the rebel Congress MLAs.
Chief Minister Harish Rawat, while training his guns on the BJP, said they were “killing” democracy. He referred to how police horse Shaktiman had been brutally attacked during a protest by BJP workers in Dehradun and had its hind leg amputated.
“First they broke the leg of the horse and now by doing horse trading, they want to break the leg of Uttarakhand,” Rawat said.
Notices have been issued to the nine rebel Congress MLAs following a request from party chief whip and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Indira Hridayesh seeking action against them for violating the party whip in the Assembly during the vote on the finance bill.
However, State BJP president and Leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt said that as a notice of no-confidence had already been moved against the Speaker he should quit.
Using the Uttarakhand crisis to attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul said it had exposed the “true face of Modiji’s BJP” and that “toppling” governments by “blatant use of money and muscle” seemed to be the party’s new model.
Senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley blamed the Congress for the crisis, claiming there was “deep division” and said it could not be attributed to the BJP.